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January 25, 2010
Nikki Bowser
“You, miss, are sickeningly unAmerican. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
This is one of my favorite quotes from hobanvisor.com. It is not from a column or a news story; it is a comment posted anonymously in response to a recent column I wrote for the Visor.
Anonymous, I’m confused. Should I be ashamed of myself for disagreeing with the President’s views and policies, or should I be ashamed of myself for publicly voicing them? Which of these actions makes me un-American: having a mind enough of my own to think for myself, or utilizing my First Amendment rights?
My answer is neither. I stand by everything I said and I would write the column again, verbatim.
There was also some concern that I did not provide enough support to call President Obama a hypocritical liar, so I will offer some at this time. President Obama repeatedly pledged to have the most transparent administration in the country’s history. He made several public promises to put the Congress-negotiations regarding his proposed healthcare reform on C-Span, and stream them over the Internet. Incidentally, the debates have been conducted behind closed doors, with voting taking place at midnight.
Not good enough? Here’s more. During his campaign President Obama promised to pull troops out of Afghanistan and bring them home. Recently Nobel Peace Prize-winning Obama sent 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, bringing the total to at least 68,000, far more than were ever in Afghanistan during the Bush Administration (troops totaled about 26,000 in Afghanistan in 2007).
This sure sounds like hypocrisy to me, but I suppose you could just write it off as merely lying.
The nation has undeniably been divided by political parties, with Americans choosing sides like a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight. I hadn’t realized how much so until after the publication of the last Visor, when several Hoban alum immediately abandoned all rational thought and resorted to name calling and whining, all in the name of political preference.
Voltaire, a French Enlightenment writer is quoted as saying “I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” I certainly expected some readers to disagree with things that I wrote, but I did not expect the level of disrespect that followed. I can appreciate factually based debates, but what I cannot appreciate is an adult taking the time to post fifteen comments informing me that what I have written is a small-minded piece of garbage.
Perhaps this is what’s wrong with the country. We are too distracted by which party we associate ourselves with to compromise on important issues. Many Obama-supporting Americans have already ruled out any logical arguments I may have made purely because I do not support their hero.
That being said, I respect each liberal, Democrat or Obama-loving reader who was able to set aside his or her pride long enough to post a comment that was not informing me that I have disappointed our entire country.
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February 4th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
One needs to be wary of the misguided mention of deadline dates to pull out troops in any place at any time. It is generally rhetoric and always should be noted as that. A voter should always question someone running for office who says something like that. First of all how much do they understand a situation? Till one is in the midst of it–and few senators are–it is difficult to comprehend. There are always upsides and downsides. Can the situation change? Yes of course. That is why a deadline is silly and will not be met normally and if it were it may not have been in the best interest. War is rarely popular. It is naive to think we could have another alternative–even if we would like to. In World War II is hard to imagine the furher damage that the Nazis would have done if countries had not come to support an oppostion. Millions–multi-millions died–there could have been many more and the world would be a different place. Obama has tried to do too much too soon–as if he could just talk things into existence. His background lacks a lot of vital experience that would be of benefit to a presidentail leadership. He is a good public relations president–but this is not a high school student council–and he is not the president of an entertainment company.
[Reply]
February 27th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Nikki,
I think that what most people were responding to in your first article was what they found to be a pro-torture stance with your comment about waterboarding:
“…it is my humble opinion that Mohammed deserved to be waterboarded 2,750 times…”
Sure, some disagree with your political stance, but no one is going to call you “unAmerican” for stating your personal views in politics; however, the wording you chose to voice your opinions about what The United States should do regarding the terrorists may have seemed a bit elitist to some people:
“[These terrorists] are not Americans. They do not deserve to be treated as such…”.
Even though I disagree with almost every one of your views that you expressed about President Obama and his administration, I applaud you for having the courage to post your views in today’s very politically hostile world. You have every right to express your opinions and I applaud the Visor for keeping the “No prior review” policy running.
In conclusion, I just wanted to correct your statement about President Obama’s goal for a transparent administration. In fact, just Thursday of this week the President hosted a bi-partisan meeting regarding a new health care reform bill. Every minute of this meeting was streaming online at http://www.Whitehouse.gov.
Here’s the link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting/bipartisan-meeting
This administration was also the first to have the President’s weekly addresses posted on the updated website on a consistent basis; everything is extremely accessible, there is even an iPhone application for the website.
,Jeff Schleis
Class of ’09
[Reply]
March 9th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Ms. Nikki Bowser:
You claim that the President lied and you assert, “During his campaign President Obama promised to pull troops out of Afghanistan and bring them home.”
On July 23, 2008, before the Nov. 2008 election, the Boston Globe quoted then Sen. Obama as follows:
“If we responsibly end the war in Iraq, we can strengthen our military, step up our efforts to finish the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, and succeed in leaving Iraq to a sovereign government that can take responsibility for its own future,” Obama said at his first news conference since touring Afghanistan and Iraq.
“The situation in Afghanistan is perilous and urgent,” he said, calling the country the “central front in the war against terrorism.”
“We must act now to reverse a deteriorating situation,” he said.
In other words, Obama distinguished Bush’s immoral and unjust Iraq War as opposed to the just war in Afghanistan; Obama wanted to get the USA out of Iraq and made no such promises regarding Afghanistan.
You said the President lied.
You owe him an apology.
And you should correct your statement regarding Afghanistan so your readers are not mislead; the Visor is not Fox News.
Jim Burke ’67 Hoban
[Reply]